The Role of Institutions in Disaster Risk Management and Mitigation in Punjab Pakistan

The role of institutions in determining the capacity of disaster resilience in communities, settlements and regions is very important and influential in operationalizing the DRR strategies deterministically. The domain of risk reduction frameworks in urban as well as rural settlements in Pakistan have been focused very less in last few decades; so therefore establishing a Disaster Mitigation Framework in context of either category of communities is categorically significant in a time frame when Pakistan transits from agrarian economy to more Urban based and industrial state. For Pakistan to achieve moderate to prolonged continuation of contemporary economic development, it must resolve the threats raised by natural catastrophic events, particularly for agricultural / rural regions as 75 % of economy is driven through this sector in the country. Understanding the significance of disaster mitigation for workable environmental, economic, and social development, the Government of Pakistan has undertaken the establishment of effective strategies, institutional and legal provisions along with the execution of policies to reduce disruption and vulnerability. An account of the factual participatory roles of various institutions in context of hierarchal accord as well as the potential capacity of each segment has been established in this research with a projected vison for improving effectiveness of the institutions to assert DRR strategies through either structural or non-structural measures, to make communities disaster resilient. The analysis of potential of capacity building in Institutional management as functioning for rural settlements in Punjab is also established in this research. The productive performance of institutions will render the DRR Strategies as a sustainable solution for making disaster prone communities as resilient. The dire need of strengthening the documented institutions is indicated with an absolute requirement of performance indicators for all quarter